'I Went Camping To Fix My Broken Sleeping Pattern'

My nightly routine goes something like this: Hop into bed at a decent hour to wind down (tick), watch an episode on Netflix, sip a camomile tea (tick) and pop on a pair of warm socks (tick).

So far, so sleepy.

But once I close my laptop and switch off the light, the trouble starts. I’m no longer tired. So I usually read on my phone for a while. Before I know it, two hours has passed. I panic and put my phone down, finally nodding off, only to be awoken by my screeching alarm, what feels like moments later. And for someone who used to pride themselves on clocking up eight hours sleep each night, now only getting four hours, despite spending seven tucked in bed glued to my iPhone, wasn’t ideal.

Of course, my first port of call was (somewhat ironically) the internet. I found plenty of tips on how to fall asleep (keep the room cool, eat a banana before bed) but most of those I was already actioning. Somewhat misguidedly, I started having a good glug of red wine before bed each night, but realised that was an expensive – and slippery – slope.

Then I read a study from the University of Colorado Boulder that found a few days spent camping can reset your circadian rhythms, or the internal clock that tells your body when it’s time to go to sleep and when it’s time to wake up. Bingo.

Nature's alarm. Image: Unsplash/Jake SloopSource:Whimn

They did this by measuring the amount of melatonin circulating in the participant’s blood at any given time. The researchers recruited 14 physically active volunteers, with nine setting off on a weekend camping trip while the other five stayed home. At the end of the weekend, the authors monitored the volunteers’ melatonin levels to see whether there had been any shift. They found that the camper’s bodies started to release melatonin around sunset and stopped releasing it around sunrise – an average of two hours earlier than before.

“Our findings demonstrate that living in our modern environments contributes to late circadian timing regardless of season, and that a weekend camping trip can reset our clock rapidly,” study co-author Kenneth Wright told Cosmos Magazine.

“Late circadian and sleep timing in modern society are associated with negative performance and health outcomes such as morning sleepiness and accidents, reduced work productivity and school performance, substance abuse, mood disorders, diabetes, and obesity.” Not exactly an all-star line-up of symptoms.

And while it’s long been known that exposure to natural daylight can help reset our sleep patterns, with a long weekend and no plans, I decided to give it a whirl myself.

Operation reset

For this experiment to really work, I needed to do some forward planning. Sleeping in my backyard for a few nights just wasn’t going to cut it, nor was sleeping in the back of my car.

So I went and saw the outdoor adventure experts at OZtrail, who kitted me out with the right gear (this tent was quick to set up, and pack up too) before I set off down south to the Royal National Park in NSW.

By “late circadian timing”, Wright is referring to our tendency to stay up way past sunset (guilty), thanks to electrical lighting, and to sleep in later thanks to bedroom blinds that shut out the dawn (also guilty).

I set some strict parameters in place: no electronic devices, no alarms, no red wine (boo). I just went to bed when I was sleepy and woke up with the sun. And with nothing much to do, my routine pretty much consisted of going on long meandering walks, reading my book (when daylight permitted) and cooking food when I was hungry.

Weirdly enough, without distractions and notifications and lights, I was getting tired earlier. By day three, I was waking up bang on sunrise, sans that groggy feeling you get with a startling alarm (could also have something to do with the lack of cab sav but that’s another story). I soon realised, artificial light had a lot to answer for when it came to not clocking eight hours...

Sleep tight

After four days, it was time to pack up, and head home. To really reap the benefits of my newly synced sleep cycle, researchers recommended participants stick to a regular sleeping and waking times for the rest of the week, which I dutifully do (even though I am not technically part of the study, lol).

Two weeks later, I have really noticed a change though. Not only am I sleeping through the night better, I am also waking up more refreshed – sometimes even before my alarm goes off at 6am. Admittedly, camping isn’t everyone’s vibe. If you’re reading this and not ready to pitch a tent, you could always start by trying to increase your exposure to natural light during the day and decrease the amount of light you see at night. Failing that, give camping another shot - it works, for real.

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